


Floating World

by luthorienne



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luthorienne/pseuds/luthorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old friends -- an interlude in Clint's journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floating World

The taxi let him off under a streetlamp, the light coloured green and yellow as it filtered through slowly-turning ginkgo leaves to pool among the shadows on the sloping sidewalk. He was drawn and stiff, and allowed an almost-inaudible grunt to escape him as he shifted the strap of his single bag into place on his shoulder. He stepped out of the golden puddle into the greater safety of deeper shadow. The evening air smelled of autumn: leaf-mold, ripe fruit, smoke and, distantly, the sea.

There was no obvious signage, no garish lighting to show that the faded green stucco building was anything more than the others on this quiet San Francisco street. Close up, there was a modest brass plaque above the bell, designating this as Kyuusoku – Rest. He pressed the bell with a knuckle, old habit making him unwilling to leave a fingerprint.

The door was opened by a kimono-clad girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, wearing the traditional white makeup and brilliantly-rouged lower lip of the maiko, or apprentice geisha. Her hair was dressed in an elaborate traditional style with two red ribbons interwoven in it, matching the red collar of her kimono. She bowed deeply to him and motioned him inside. 

“Welcome, Taka-San,” she said. “Please come in. We are pleased to see you once again.”

“Thank you, Miko,” he replied. “I’m glad to be back. I see you’re much taller than you were the last time I was here.”

She smiled and ducked her head, but made no reply. An older woman appeared from a doorway to take his bag and leather jacket from him as he slipped off his shoes, placing them together on a mat, toes toward the door. 

He let Miko lead him to a small dining room off the entry hall, though he knew the way; there were two cushions set by the low table, and he took the one carefully placed to put his back to a solid wall and give him a view of the sliding door. The cushion was soft, and the cross-legged posture stretched muscles he hadn’t been aware of needing to be stretched as he took his seat. Somewhere, faint and far away, he could hear samisen music, but it was canned, and he thought he was probably the only guest in this house tonight. The light in the room was soft, the air faintly scented with green tea and incense. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing his shoulders to drop. 

He didn’t hear her coming – he never did – but in a moment or two, the door slid aside and a small, slender woman dressed in a pale gold kimono elaborately embroidered in indigo and purple stepped through the door. Her hair was dressed in traditional style, her face painted white, with upper and lower lip crimson. He rose and exchanged bows with her as she came forward to take his hands.

“Taka-San, you are most welcome in our home,” she said. “It has been too long since we have seen you.”

“I’m honoured to be your guest, Mayuki,” he replied. “I have a gift for you.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a small package wrapped in a square of brocade fabric, presenting it to her formally, with both hands. She received it in like fashion, thanking him prettily and setting it aside, as he knew she would. He would press her to open it later; he wanted to see her face as she examined the golden crane with three perfect pearls in its nest. She loved pretty things, and he loved to give them to her.

They had met almost twenty years ago in a back street in Hokkaido, when he was still a mercenary in that brief hiatus between the Marines and SHIELD. He had been nursing a stab wound and looking for a bolthole where he could recover in safety. Mayuki had been struggling in the clutches of a drunken American thug who thought ‘geisha’ and ‘whore’ were synonymous terms. He’d dispatched the man and escorted her safely back to her house, and in gratitude, the house had sheltered him discreetly for the three days it took him to recover from blood loss and shock. Since then, he’d been back several times, and when she moved to San Francisco and opened her own house, he became a more frequent customer there. Although ‘customer’ wasn’t quite the right word, since she never allowed him to pay for his visits.

She served him an elaborate dinner of his favourite Japanese dishes, talking easily to him of politics and sports and books. They talked of places they had both visited, and she plied him with warm sake and tiny sweet dumplings. When he had eaten his fill and the sake had warmed him pleasantly, she bowed over his hand.

“Will you pillow with me, Taka-San?” she asked sweetly. 

“I will be honoured to pillow with you, Mayuki,” he replied, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. 

She didn’t always offer, and he didn’t always accept when she did, though he always acknowledged the honour she paid him. He had long since convinced her that she owed him no debt, and he hoped she continued to offer because it pleased her. He was more, he thought, than a friend to her, and less than a danna – that relationship was almost like a marriage – but he didn’t really have a name for what they were. ‘Friends with benefits’ might have been the best description, but that was far too vulgar a term to be used in this house. It didn’t matter. They were what they were.

Before anything else, they bathed, as he’d known they would. First there was a shower, his soiled clothing whisked away by the old woman who’d taken his jacket earlier. They knew to leave his knives and his wallet and watch on a tray by the bed. He washed himself thoroughly with sandalwood soap and a loofah, then walked into the next room, where Mayuki already waited in a vast square tub of steaming water. He mounted the steps at the side of the tub and swung himself over the edge, sighing deeply as the steam enveloped him. Mayuki, her long, glossy black hair now wound up in a simple knot on the top of her head, secured with enameled sticks, and her face now innocent of makeup, slipped behind him to press her thumbs into the knotted muscles at the top of his spine. She was good at this, and he gave himself over to the kneading fingers until he felt boneless and heavy, content to let his head fall back against her shoulder, turning his face into the curve of her neck, inhaling the mingled scents of bergamot and jasmine that rose from her skin. She stroked a hand across his chest; he could feel her smiling.

“You are not too tired, Clint?” she asked, only half-teasing.

“I’m not too tired,” he replied, smiling up at her. 

It had been more than fifteen years since they’d first been together. He’d gathered scars and thicker layers of muscle and a lot of nightmares since then. There were gray threads in his hair, and lines around his eyes, and he’d finally had to succumb to a pair of reading glasses so he could fletch his own arrows, though his distance vision was still unchanged. He wondered what changes she saw in him.

Mayuki was still tiny. The top of her head barely cleared his sternum, and he could span her waist with his two hands. But there were a few gray threads in her glossy hair, too, and some tiny lines around eyes and mouth, and below his hands at her waist, there was the slightest swell of a tummy that he wanted to nuzzle and kiss later. Her breasts had always been small and had kept their shape, but they were heavier in his hands now as he lifted them to kiss the sweet nipples. She looked as fragile as a porcelain cup. He knew she was stronger than she looked, but still, he let her crouch above him and set the pace, bracing herself on his arms as he cupped her hips in his hands, lifting and lowering her in the half-lit room until she came apart above him, and he allowed his own release to build and crest. 

Later, as she lay languidly over him, he tugged gently on a lock of her hair.

“Open your present,” he urged, stretching out to pick it up from the bedside table to hand it to her. Dimpling prettily, she sat up on his lap and undid the wrapping, taking out the pretty pin. 

He’d seen it in a shop window in Zurich a week ago, and had thought of her at once. The crane was white gold, the nest with the three creamy pearls in it of mingled yellow and red gold. She had a kimono embroidered with cranes that she’d worn the first time they were together. He wondered if she still had it. 

Her reaction was everything he’d hoped for, and when she had thanked him, she curled up at his side, drawing the covers up over them. He stroked the creamy skin of her cheek with his fingertip, smoothing her hair back. 

“I always think of you when I see a crane,” he murmured. “Beautiful and graceful.” He felt her smile.

“That is very flattering,” she replied. “Japanese believe the tsuru is a symbol of good fortune and long life.” She rose on one elbow and smiled up at him, crooking her knee over his thigh. “To me, you are always taka, the hawk. He is the stong one, guardian spirit, protector.”

He smiled, tracing the curve of her lower lip with his thumb. 

“I think maybe the tsuru is stronger than the taka, sometimes,” he said. Smiling gently, she caught his hand and pressed a kiss in the palm, curling up against him.

“Tsuru can be strong because the hawk has watched over her,” she said drowsily. “Sleep now, Taka-San, and in the morning we will have fruit and rice and fresh salmon. And your terrible American coffee.”

She was gone from the bed when he woke the next morning, feeling well-rested and ravenously hungry. He was unsurprised: as the head of this household, Mayuki had many duties, and a geisha’s days began early. His clothing had been cleaned and pressed and was laid out on a cedar bench near the shower room, together with a fresh razor and toothbrush. He lingered under the hot water, relishing the unwonted feeling of well-being, and smiled ironically at himself in the mirror, thinking that, maybe, after all, a few gray hairs didn’t mean he was on his way out of the game.

Miko, the apprentice geisha, met him at the bathroom door and conducted him to the dining room, where Mayuki waited, presiding over a table laden with food. She wore an informal yukata of midnight blue, her hair caught back loosely in a blue ribbon. She wore no makeup, and put her face up to be kissed as he took his accustomed place facing the door. Mayuki served him heroic portions of everything, and stole bits from his plate playfully, bringing him up to date on the morning’s headlines as they ate. Conversation was a geisha’s stock in trade: Mayuki’s mornings always began with a thorough perusal of all the day’s news. Eventually, he sat back, sighing. There was no putting it off; he had to go.

“I will miss you, Clint,” she said wistfully, rising gracefully with him. “You will return when you can?”

“You know I will,” he replied, kissing her gently. “And whenever I see a bird on the wing, I’ll think of my beautiful tsuru here, safe in her nest.”

“And I will think of my strong hawk, keeping watch high overhead,” she replied, dimpling prettily. “Travel safely, Clint.”

Miko saw him out, her formal bow a little spoiled by the grin and wave she gave him as he turned to look back before he walked up the street. The little figure in the kimono, framed by the heavy fringes of ginkgo leaves slowly turning in the autumn air was like a woodcut from an antique book, and he had a moment’s panic, like he was stepping out of a fairytale, and if he once lost sight of her, he could never get back. Foolish, he thought, returning her wave, and turning resolutely to walk up to the busy cross-street where he would pick up a taxi. Real life was waiting, and Fury wanted him in New Mexico before the weekend to keep an eye on the tesseract at the Project Pegasus base.

**Author's Note:**

> A little moment from Ronin's past for Barton to carry forward into Hawkeye's future.
> 
> If my Japanese translations are clumsy, I apologize.


End file.
